of greeting. “I don’t see any reason to dither on the issues at hand. Do you or King Soren have any questions or concerns regarding the marriage contract?”
Leisa glanced at Vaniell, but he was seating himself by her side and appeared entirely unconcerned with the conversation.
“I was not given to understand that I would be expected to negotiate on my own behalf,” she replied, not having to feign her uncertainty. That sort of thing was done by kings and their advisors. She was here to experience the court, to meet Vaniell, and to form her own opinions of the suitability of the alliance, not to decide the fate of the kingdom.
“A monarch must always be prepared to lead,” King Melger said impatiently. “And to know what will best serve his or her kingdom in the future. I trust you’ve at least read the contract and know what it contains.”
“I… yes.” He was trying to fluster her, she decided. And it was working. But she wasn’t yet ready to give up the ground she’d gained the night before, and it was time to remind him of that. “But before we discuss the contract, there is another matter that I feel must be settled between our kingdoms—a breach of sovereignty that I must admit I find troubling.”
Melger’s air of impatience sharpened into a near-predatory focus. “You wish to discuss last night?” His lips thinned for a moment, as he seemed to consider how best to respond. “Perhaps that is something better left to negotiation between myself and your father. I was willing to allow a certain degree of latitude, considering your youth and inexperience, but this is hardly the time or the place for us to enter into petty wrangling over some imagined slight. Perhaps you cannot be expected to understand the realities of keeping a kingdom secure, but there is time for you to learn, if you are willing to accept the advice of those who have come by their wisdom through painful experience.”
In her head, Leisa pushed King Soren into the nonexistent moat and then threw a half-dozen or so razor-beaked turtles in after him. A bodyguard shouldn’t have to deal with this sort of thing. Did she defend Farhall’s sovereignty? Maintain her retiring demeanor? Refute Melger outright? Or bury her dagger in the table between them and declare war?
She was pretty sure that last bit was out, but honestly, none of this had been any part of her original assignment. A social visit, they’d called it.
Hah.
“As you said, Your Majesty, a monarch must always be prepared, and must know what will best serve his or her kingdom in the future.” Leisa kept her tone respectful, and her hands folded in her lap so they wouldn’t twitch. “Perhaps my father would choose otherwise, but by sending me here, he has indicated his trust in us both—in Garimore, to treat me as an extension of Farhall herself, and in me, to represent Farhall with honor. If I did not demonstrate my willingness to defend my subjects, I would consider myself to have behaved with cowardice and displayed a lack of respect for the confidence that has been placed in me.”
Oh, he didn’t like that at all. If Melger had been even a particle less kingly, he probably would have been sputtering in outrage. Possibly even dissolved into apoplexy. Perhaps she shouldn’t have thrown his own words back in his face, but when a man handed her the perfect weapon to use against him, it would be downright ungrateful to pass up the opportunity.
Except now King Melger wasn’t the only one subjecting her to further scrutiny. Prince Danric was staring as though she’d grown a second head. Take that, Mr. “Hasn’t a Scrap of Backbone.”
The only one enjoying the conversation? That would be Vaniell, who rested his chin in one hand and looked from one face to the next as though he were considering selling tickets.
“And how exactly do you feel it necessary to ‘defend your subjects?’” Prince Danric demanded.
Evaraine would never have been able to hold his accusatory gaze, so perhaps it was just as well Leisa was not her.
“I do not pretend to know how such things are viewed in Garimore, but in Farhall, we would never presume to give orders to the personal servants of a member of visiting royalty. Nor would we dismiss them without a word, nor deny a guest access to her own guard upon request. And we most certainly would not eject them from the